


cold comforts

by VolxdoSioda



Series: Whumptober 2018 (Complete) [11]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Day 11 - Hypothermia, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Noctis Whump, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 23:55:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16294391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolxdoSioda/pseuds/VolxdoSioda
Summary: Of the five times Gladio has had a camping trip go bad over his thirty-something years of experience, four of those times have been learning experiences.Today is the fifth time he's had a camping trip go bad, but for once it isn't his own. Although just like before, it's a learning experience. And the lesson is this - Noctis apparently doesn't recognize the difference between storm clouds andsnow clouds.





	cold comforts

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the same universe as _I'll check in tomorrow (if I don't wake up dead)_ but you don't need to read that one to know this one.

Of the five times Gladio has had a camping trip go bad over his thirty-something years of experience, four of those times have been learning experiences. Especially because early on, he hadn't really known what he was doing. The wilds of Altissia were vastly different from the wilds of Cleigne or Duscae, after all, and just with every major region, it had its ups and downs. But he learned from those sharp downward turns, and now he knows Altissia's land just as he knows Insomnia's, well enough to camp out in the middle of nowhere and be safe for it.

Today is the fifth time he's had a camping trip go bad, but for once it isn't his own. Although just like before, it's a learning experience. And the lesson is this - Noctis apparently doesn't recognize the difference between storm clouds and  _snow clouds._

Noctis, who Gladio is currently bridal-carrying in his arms, wrapped in six blankets, and covered with Gladio's own jacket, plus a hat, scarf and mittens, while he wades hip-deep through the trench in the snow leading from one of the larger rocks down to Noctis' camp site. Well, former camp site now. It's a good thing his charge didn't bring anything that can't be replaced, because Gladio's not stopping for any of it. 

He's not Ignis, but he's enough of a healer to know what sickness in the lungs sounds like, and it makes him itch to get Noctis back to the cabin he has out here in case of emergencies, wrap him up in the bed, and ply him with hot tea and broth until whatever the kid's got rattles its way out of his body. It's not going to be pretty, that much he can already tell. But it'll happen.

"Find him?" Ignis yells from nearby. The rest of the world is silent, the pre-dawn air too cold for animals to emerge from. He's following the sound of snow crunching around Gladio, but nothing else. 

"Yeah," Gladio calls back, and tucks Noctis a little firmer under his chin when the boy moans in pain. Poor kid. Still, this will be the last time Noctis goes out adventuring on his own without Gladio's supervision. At least until he's confident the kid knows as much as he himself does. 

Ignis takes Noctis long enough to allow Gladio to climb back up onto the steep rocks, and then he immediately hands him back over. "I'll get the car running," he says, and runs off to do just that. Gladio tugs Noctis' hat down a little firmer, and rubs one large hand across his face, trying to keep the kid warm. When Ignis gives the yell not five minutes later, he slides himself and his charge into the back seat, thanking the Six King Regis thought to install heated seats as well as the best heater the world could afford to give him on the Regalia. 

"It's going to take some time for us to reach the cabin," Ignis says, sliding into the passenger seat as Cor - the one who woke them and alerted them to this whole clusterfuck - slides into the driver's seat without fanfare. "At least two hours."

"Go, then," Gladio says, already in the process of making a rough nest in the back seats, and laying Noctis down as flat as he can get him. "I'll make sure he stays alive in the meantime."

Mainly, that consists of keeping Noct warm - it's made somewhat easier by the blankets and additional articles of clothing Cor thought to bring. Then again, Cor's spent as much time camping as Gladio himself, if not more - he knows how fatal snow clouds can be in the wrong circumstances. So with the seat heating on, the heater turned up full blast, and the warmth of the blankets and jackets wrapped beneath, Gladio adds his own bulk in as well, curling around Noctis and tuck him as close to his body as he can feasibly get him. 

They're maybe an hour and a half into the trip when Noctis starts shivering. Gladio takes it as a good sign - hypothermia comes in stages, and the fact that the kid hadn't even stirred with all the manhandling was a bad sign. Now at least his body is shivering, coming alive from the heat being applied. It's far from over, but at least they've come down a step. 

They arrive at the cabin without Noctis waking, and Gladio holds his position as Cor and Ignis go inside, Cor to get the fire started, and Ignis to start cooking. 

He brushes gentle fingers over Noctis' cheek, frowning at how blue he still looks in the light of the car. "Hang on Noct."

A few moments later, Cor raps on the car door, and Gladio stars re-wrapping his Prince back up to take him inside.

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

Noctis drifts in and out of consciousness in the following days, as his temperature steadily climbs and holds. Ignis plies him with hot food and drink - all liquids, easy to get down and keep in his stomach. Gladio wraps him up in his bed, and actually drags out several of the furs he has in his closet - keepsakes from his time in Altissia, and some of the bigger hunts he brought down. They help keep Noctis warm when he can't be there, given Ignis isn't nearly his size and doesn't put out heat like a furnace. 

He goes out briefly to gather herbs from his garden for tea - the frost has nipped all of them, but Gladio has bred and crossed these plans himself through several generations, and they can all withstand the cold without issue. In fact, as if knowing they would be needed, many of them have grouped and shot up in spite of the cold. Gladio murmurs his thanks to each as he gathers, patting the soil and making a note to give them all a good dose of fertilizer once the snow clears out to pay them back for the kindness. 

Most people hear 'camping' and think it means everything Gladio knows is the same thing a twenty-something freshman out of college knows. That isn't the case. Gladio is a  _survivalist,_ and he knows how to do a lot more than just heat up cup noodles in the microwave. He washes and cuts the herbs down to size, separating a large portion of what he's gathered into the appropriate mason jars for later. Some he sets aside to be dried and sold - the rest however go into the biggest tea pot he has available, boiling water poured over the whole mess, and three cups taken alongside it to the bedroom. 

From there, it's mainly waiting. Cor keeps them updated on the situation at home - Regis wanted them back in the city, but nobody was willing to risk Noctis' life on the five hours it would take to get there. The cabin was the closest, safest spot, and so it is there they've hunkered down. The weather reports are all claiming there will be at least another foot of snow dropped over the next week and a half - which means travel is going to be a bitch, especially getting back inside the city. Times like this, Gladio finds himself missing Altissia.

It's ironic that on the day the storm kicks back up, winds howling and gusting outside his door, Noctis wakes up. Gladio's sitting beside him in bed, the kid's head in his lap, combing longer fingers through silky strands with one hand while he reads a book on his phone with the other. When Noctis first makes a sound, he assumes it's just another fever-induced dream, and keeps petting. 

Then there's a yawn, and when he looks down it's to find blue eyes - bright, unclouded with the haze of confusion for once - opening and looking around. "Well hey, look who came back to the land of the living," Gladio drawls, setting down his phone. 

"Where am I?" Noctis mumbles. He raises his head and looks around. "Cabin?"

"My cabin. We're out between Leide and Duscae right now, I'm afraid. A bit far from home, but closer than you were. You gave us one hell of a scare."

"The snow," Noctis says. He closes his eyes, lowers his head back to the pillow. "Knew I should have left."

"Why didn't you?"

Noctis sniffles, burying his face back beneath the blankets, and for a moment Gladio thinks he's fallen back asleep. Then he speaks, and his voice is the softest Gladio's heard it in a while. "Because they said if I came back before the week was up, I'd be a quitter."

 _Oh for fuck's sake,_ Gladio thinks with no small amount of exasperation. He's not terribly surprised there was a bet staged behind all of this - he'd thought it odd when Noctis suddenly decided to go camping after showing precisely  _zero_ interest all of his life. But still. 

"You're smarter than that, Noctis," he says. "You risked your life - very nearly lost it. If we hadn't found you, you'd be dead right now."

Noctis' gaze stays on the blanket. "I know," he says, barely a whisper. And then, somehow even quieter, "I just didn't want to disappoint you."

Gladio claps a hand over his eyes now, if only to stave off the headache he can feel coming. He's forgotten what it's like being a teenager, he thinks, and wanting to impress your closest male authority figure. Granted he still enjoys making his dad proud - those little nods and smiles Clarus gives him. But he's not  _greedy_ for it like Noctis is with him and Ignis, or with Regis.

"Think you can sit up for a second?" he asks.

"Yeah. Was going to ask you to do that anywa--whoa!" Blue eyes widen as Gladio neatly hauls him up into his lap, and then takes his chin in one hand and brings their foreheads together in a gentle touch. 

"Okay Noctis. I want you to listen to me, and listen well, alright? No matter what anyone ever tells you, unless I myself or Ignis say the words 'you have disappointed us',  _you will not disappoint us._ We practically raised you - do you really think we'd stick around if we weren't proud? You think cutting out in the middle of a camping trip is going to disappoint me, when I've seen you grit your teeth and walk on a broken limb to get someone to safety? You think coming home because there's a  _blizzard_ on the way is going to make me frown when I've seen you wield magics twice your strength with nothing but sheer willpower? C'mon now."

Noctis' face is turning red, and it has precisely nothing to do with the fever. His eyes are also suspiciously bright, but Gladio's not gonna call him on it if he cries. "We love you, you little idiot. Get that through your skull. And there is very little in this world, short of mass murder you could do where that feeling would change. Okay?"

Noctis bobs his head, rendered mute and staring firmly at Gladio's chest. He ruffles the boy's hair, and then wraps arms around him and rocks him a little, humming to disguise the suspicious sniffling noises. He says nothing about the wetness creeping through his shirt. 

Ignis, always fast on the uptake, pokes his head in. "Noct? Are you feeling hungry at all?"

Noctis' head nods against Gladio's chest. "Soup still, Iggy," Gladio says. "Kid's still got a bad throat."

"Soup it is, then. Give me a moment, and I'll be right out with it."

"Yeah," Noctis croaks against Gladio's chest, his own hands coming up to wrap around Gladio's midsection, clinging to him in a way he'll never admit, but Gladio knows he needs. "We'll be here."


End file.
